Guild Wars 2

What I intend to propose in this lengthy post are some simple, but ultimately meaningful changes to the scoreboard displayed in structured PvP battles. For a number of reasons, I feel this scoreboard is dramatically incomplete and does very little to indicate how much a player has actually contributed to the outcome of a game. I will not insist this is the opinion of the majority, but I have noted across these forums that many tournament players are in agreement.

I. Who are you to say?
I’m a PvP junkie of just about the most dedicated caliber. While it is true I joined the PvP scene later than many veterans (Vanilla WoW) I have exhausted the great majority of content in nearly every system I have participated in (Warlrod & Gladiator in WoW, RR80 in WAR, Rank 75 in SWTOR, Gold in LoL, etc). The point being, I have experience with what constitutes a good scoreboard system and what doesn’t.

II. What’s wrong with the current scoreboard?
In general (and I will get to specifics) it doesn’t accurately portray what a player has contributed to a victory. In fact, it doesn’t even give the interesting details of individual performance but instead summarizes a player’s efforts into one number based on point values that are misleading. Here are some examples of how a player’s score could falsely describe their efforts:
Capping points -
When a player stands on a point as it is captured or neutralized, they receive 10 points, though more players on a point does not cause it to cap faster. Despite this fact, players will often sit on an uncontested point in large numbers, motivated to do so as this will improve their score and glory gain. However, since they could be more useful elsewhere, these points are not indicative of them actually benefitting the team. At higher rankings in tournament play, I notice most players will try to leave one player to cap the point they all just fought together to take, but they should not be punished with point/glory losses for playing smart.
Reviving Allies –
Players are awarded 10 points for reviving an ally. However, if you revive 90% or so of a fallen player’s HP, and another ally runs up to revive that last 10% simultaneously, the player who most recently interacted with the fallen ally will receive the credit, despite the fact that they were most likely neither the most helpful player nor the most deserving of the credit.
Skirmisher/Objective Defender/Objective Assaulter -
Skirmisher (or OD/OA) refers to the 10 points gained when defeating an enemy player for players who dealt a high amount of damage to the fallen enemy. However, many builds contribute dramatically to kills, such as tanks and healers, but are unable to get these points as frequently as damage-dealers, resulting in a lower score. My queue partner plays a healing engineer, remarkably well given the uniqueness of his build, and often our victories would not be possible without his efforts but he rarely receives high point values because it is so difficult for him to get Skirmisher with such a defensive/support  build.

III. So, it’s just  a scoreboard. Why do these changes actually matter?
In GW2, scoreboard is not just about bragging rights. It directly affects glory gain. If you have two players of equal skill, one of whom chooses to play support/defensive character like my friend from the Skirmisher example, and the other a competent damage dealer such as a Mesmer or offensive Guardian, you can expect the latter to rank up much faster as he can accrue points more quickly.
However, don’t mistake me. The bragging rights are actually important to, and I would say those who disagree are missing a good portion of the fun behind a skill-based MMO PvP system that throws the element of gear out the window as beautifully as GW2 SPvP does. I would love for the scoreboard to provide more details for each player, even those which don’t directly contribute to glory gains.

IV. Okay. So how would we fix the scoreboard?
Objective Capturing -
Refine this so players who were in combat near the objective within 15-30 seconds of its capture/neutralization still receive credit. We know because of rewards like “objective assaulter” and “objective defender” that code exists to recognize when a player is not just on but -near- a cap point. I feel like this would be an easy fix.
Reviving Allies -
Simple fix. Either give all players who are healing the ally at the instant they revive credit, or only to the one who has done the most healing. Obviously, credit should only be given to those who are still healing when the ally rallies, as is currently the situation.
Skirmisher/Objective Defender/Objective Assaulter -
This one would be a bit trickier, but recovering the damage a target deals or enduring the damage that target deals should also contribute to skirmisher. For example, if a Thief does a great deal of damage to a tanky opponent, perhaps a Guardian, who is simultaneously being healed by a water Elementalist, just before a Ranger kills the Thief…all players should be eligible for skirmisher when the Thief dies. The guardian for soaking the damage, the Elementalist for recovering the damage, and the ranger, obviously, for damaging the thief. In the current system, it is quite possible that only the Ranger will receive this credit in such a scenario despite the arguably equivalent contribution from all players.
I understand the code here is likely the most demanding, but I feel this would be an important change. (One which, by the way, I make as someone who only plays massive damage characters and currently gets showered in Skirmisher points game after game. ;P)

More Informative Scoreboard - (If you take nothing else from this post…)
Finally, while these would not directly affect the glory gain for a match, they would provide lots of input on player performance, which is an excellent element to have in a PvP community that engages in competitive, gear-free matches. Here are some of my suggestions for additional stats to display, which could perhaps be visible on the current scoreboard, or seen when you mouse over a player:
Deaths – Number of times a player died in this match.
Healing done – Total amount of healing to self and allies that actually recovered damage.
Damage done – Damage dealt. This wouldn’t be a far stretch from the individual damage reports a player sees when slain from the sources that contributed to their death.
Damage taken – A stat for all those tanks to show off how immovable they are.
Player kills – Number of times player received the +5 points for killing an enemy player.
Total time on points – Gives an idea of how hard this player defended/assaulted throughout the game.
Map specific ideas – Treb destructions, Svanir/Chieftan kills, etc~

These are just a few suggestions, and I’m in favor of any more you guys might come up with. It is my opinion that when it comes to PvP stats, the scoreboard cannot be too informative. Thanks for reading this post, and I hope a few of you out there feel as strongly about improving the scoreboard system as I do.

I agree with you.

Furthermore, a SPVP leatherboard should be up and running as the TPVP leatherboard.

All it need, is a new parameter for the lookup in the database. Why spvp leatherboard? To have a real idea of an individual skills… versus the capacity to be with the right group at the right time (TPVP is less skill than social luck).

More… tpvp is a niche. Many more people play spvp so, why not having a score board for the doing?

Thanks for reading.

Although I agree that the point system could use a small tweak, there are some things I don’t agree with.

You are encouraging players to draw out a fight:

Total Time on Points – favors bunker
Total Dmg Taken – favors bunker
Total Healing Done – favors bunker
Total Deaths – favors bunker

Total Damage Done – favors roamer.
Total Kills – favors roamer.

These statistics don’t necessarily give you a big picture of the skill of the player. Could you imagine the statistics of 2 bunkers fighting over a point?

What about classes that heal while doing damage (El, En, G, R) vs. those that don’t (T, M, W, N)? This is imbalanced for the dps who helps the bunker defend since the dps contributes to 3 categories (2 if it’s a ranged dps) by (dmg done, time on cap, kill) while the bunker contributes to 5 categories by (dmg done, time on cap, kill, healing done, dmg taken).

On reviving an ally, giving points to people trying to revive a player helps provide incentive. It should stay that way. Not wanting someone else to get points for helping is just selfish imo.

Now, I’m not here to rain on your parade, because I do think bunkers should get more glory. Something should be done about that.

I think the stats would be nice to know too… but it doesn’t belong on the scoreboard. It should go into your player statistics. Why?

1. Because you are asking for a ton of clutter on the screen vs a short amount of game summary time.
2. Because this is for the kitten who wants to rant at other people about who was helpful and who wasn’t.

My Solution

Reviving: Breakdown the player’s health into points so the more you contribute the more credit you get.

I.E. healing for 90% of the health will give you 9 points while healing 10% health will give you 1.

Scoring: Start a timer on those who are in combat around a cap, then mutiply it by 1 for a death and 1.5 for a kill. Give the timer a limit of 90 seconds (or something to discourage abusers)

I.E. A bunker who fights for 30 seconds and loses the cap recieves 30 points. The victor recieves 45. If a 4v1 lasts 10 seconds, the bunker gets 10 points, the 4 recieve 15.

Information: Have pvp tab that shows your game statistics in more detail for YOU to see. Guild statistics options in a Guild PvP tab to view member details.

I.E. If you want to refine team information, then it should encourage a team format. Doing this will encourage pvp guilds, pre-made groups, and prevent kittens from ranting at people in solo queue.

I do not feel that healing should grant points because healing is imbalanced (some classes simply outheal others). I do not feel the unholy trinity should be brought back and devide players into dps, tank, healer reguardless of how hard players try.

I do feel that serious pvp players should be able to have access to a serious scoreboard breakdown, but it shouldn’t be imposed on the casual solo queuer.

College sounds like you misunderstood a lot of my post, which is more on me than you because I tackled some difficult explanations there. Lemme try again to clear some of those points up:

1) Those “extra stats” (i.e. damage done, time on points, healing done) do not have to each be equally attainable for every class and build. They never are in any game to include them (and almost every PvP MMO and MOBA does). That’s why I mention that they “should have no influence on glory gain.” Every build for every class would be capable of doing something on that scoreboard (damage, point time, healing, damage absorbed, kills, deaths, etc) but they are not all expected to be equal on every stat.
I also agree that players should need to take an extra step to view these, as directly integrating them into the base scoreboard would be very difficult and cluttered.

2) The changes I am proposing to revive are the opposite of “selfish” – though that is a very apt description for the current revive system.
Right now: If you are reviving someone for most of their HP and then someone runs up and finishes the last few tics, they will get the points and you won’t, even if you were still healing when the player revived.
My suggestion: Both players get points as long as they are still reviving when the player rallies.

The reason I cannot get behind the breakdown of HP recovered to points system is because it does not account for the fact that actually rallying the player is the only step that is really important.

On the subject of getting glory for healing, I assume you’re referring to my skirmisher/Objective assaulter/Objective defender suggestion. Keep in mind that at the moment it is based strictly on damage, which is certainly not universally fair. I am suggesting it be based on damage, healing, and damage taken. This is more inclusive and more fair.

Thanks for the feedback, just wanted to make sure my suggestions weren’t misinterpreted.

I personally think Ll points should be shared across the whole team, regardless of where they are or what they do. It would make life much simpler. Still record the stats and breakdowns, but a team of winners should all be Equel on points regardless of role.